One of the most compelling and attractive aspects of GNU/Linux and Free
software for me has always been portability and so to that I end I have
been striving for the last 16 years to make sure that I can do everything I
need to do with a computer with open, free software. My other main hobby is
music and so naturally these have converged with my focus being put on
testing free audio software for Linux.
My first foray into running Linux on a non-x86 machine was back in '99 when
I bought the original iMac mainly so I could install and play with Linux on
something that wasn't a PC. My first exposure to ARM Linux came in 2004/5
when I got hold of a Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 which was a mighty impressive
device at the time as it was the first Linux PDA to have a HD, USB host
etc. The C3000 only has 64MB RAM but, as anyone who has run Linux on the
original XBOX will tell you, you'd be surprised at how much you can do
under Linux with only 64MB RAM. I managed to get JACK, specimen, seq24 and
a few of the Linux trackers running on the Zaurus.
Now its 2012 and I'm the proud owner of a Pandaboard - a mini ARM dev board
with a dual core ARM Cortex, 1GB RAM, SSD and HDMI output etc. Apart from
it 'not being a PC' - what I really like about this device is its low power
consumption and total lack of fans or other cooling methods hence its
totally silent. I've got Ubuntu 12.04 running Fluxbox on it and yesterday I
achieved one of my main Pandaboard goals as I'm very happy to report it is
possible to run at least one instance of the DISTRHO TAL Noisemaker LV2
plugin under qtractor (latest svn) on the Pandaboard with no xruns! As soon
as you add a second Noisemaker track the xruns start to appear but you can
of course mix NM down to audio tracks to get more instances that way.
It should be noted that I have had to use an external USB soundcard to get
JACK running on the Pandboard as the current ALSA driver for the Panda's
onboard audio isn't working with JACK yet - in fact the onboard audio isn't
working at all with the latest TI kernel and I also had to set the CPU
governor to performance to get xrun free performance for Noisemaker. It
goes without saying that the Pandaboard is not cut out for forming the
basis of a pro-audio DAW and will not be replacing your i7 rig any time
soon but its literally sooo much cooler!
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Received on Fri Jul 20 16:15:02 2012
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